


Green thumb

by taotrooper



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Holding Hands, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 09:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taotrooper/pseuds/taotrooper
Summary: Written for akayonagiftexchange at Tumblr. Based on this little addition from the OAD. Zeno praises Kaya’s skills with plants and distracts her from her work in terrible ways. Sometimes calluses can be better than having none, he believes.





	Green thumb

Zeno came back from the river, his fingertips wrinkled for a fleeting moment as if only they had caught up with the weight of time that avoided his body. The sleeves of his tunic were still rolled up and he hadn’t cared to unfold them yet. It was a good day for laundry, as the skies were clear and the sun shined bright on the forest, on the line where the wet clothes were hung, on the golden hair.

On his way back to the hut, he saw Kaya knelt on the ground, working hard. Silently he sneaked behind her back, and he bit his lip while he covered her eyes with the palm of his hands. She shuddered from the surprise and the coldness of his wet hands, but the reaction was gone immediately, replaced by a smile.

“Zeno,” Kaya said. The name said in her voice was like the song of a bird: music to his ears.

“Aw, you guessed again!” He moved his hands away, and she looked at him over his shoulder.

“Silly, you’re the only person around! And a perfect stranger wouldn’t play this game.”

“You got me there.”

He sat on the sun-kissed ground with his legs crossed, careful not to do it on the crops. He looked at the contents of a basket next to her, then at the girl unearthing a daikon with a strong pull.

“It’s so plump!” he said in awe. “They really were ready!”

“Only the radishes and turnips, though. This one’s the largest I’ve ever had!” She grinned with pride. “It’s thanks to your boss for giving us seeds.”

“But it’s thanks to your care that they got to grow so well. You really have a green thumb, Kaya.”

She looked at her own hands, confused.

“They’re not green. They do look a bit brown with all this earth.”

Zeno chuckled. “It’s an old expression! Maybe it went out of fashion? It means that someone’s good with plants and gardening.”

“Oh.”

“So yeah, you’re talented.” He saw her blushing. “I almost ruined your last harvest when I tried to help, but those were healthy and tasty too.”

“It’s not that amazing. It’s just nature and common knowledge. Everyone in my village knew a little farming for living.” She put the radish on the basket with the other collected vegetables, pensive. “But I’m glad they’re healthy, you know. I’m glad that plants don’t get the same diseases than humans…”

“Kaya…”

She started to shake and make what seemed like sobbing-like sounds. But when he moved closer to give her a hug, he saw that she was snorting.

“Kaya…?”

“I-I imagined… a tree coughing…!” Giggles. “And its leaves… would fall off…” More giggles. “Fruit shaking on its br— bran— branches!”

Well, that sort of fit was much better! Her laugh was contagious so he found himself joining.

“Mommy, weren’t we going to eat rice for dinner?” Zeno said in the voice of a child. He then replied with the voice of a woman, with a serious tone. “We can’t, son. Our bag of rice has the flu.” Kaya laughed, and he continued almost unable to restrain the laughter. “I think it —pfft— caught it from the apricots!”

Both of them howled to the verge of tears.

Oh, how fun it was to be with her. How much he loved her. After he stopped, he glanced at her chortles, at the way she was beaming like the sunshine on their heads. Once she calmed down, he boldly grabbed one of her hands just to hold her, to feel her warmth on his cold fingers.

She quickly removed it from his grasp, which shocked him a bit. They were already married and they had held hands many times already.

“Too chilly? The water wrinkles are almost gone by now.”

“No…” She seemed embarrassed. “My hands are all dirty and covered with earth.”

“So? Why would I mind that?” He tilted his head. “Our house is on the bare ground, we have dust everywhere. I should know, I just did the laundry.”

It took her a few seconds to articulate her thoughts. Zeno waited patiently.

“It’s just that… You’re so well-traveled, Zeno. You told me you’ve lived in the capital for a while, right? And I imagine a country girl’s hands must be so different to the ladies from the big city.”

He was still confused.

“Um, how so? How do you imagine a city girl’s hands are like?”

“Dunno, all clean and with long nails and… not callous like mine.”

She opened her palms upward, to show them. Again, Zeno saw nothing wrong with them, but he thought he understood where Kaya was coming from.

“Nah, it’s not like that for most of them. I mean sure, the high society and noble ladies have cleaner hands. But that’s just a little fraction of them, you know? There are poor girls and merchant girls and other many girls who work and get dirty a lot, even if they can’t farm?

"And you know, I barely know any people with no calluses. Even those rich ladies have like hobbies and things to do that can cause them.” He imitated all actions he started to list with his hands and arms. “Those who write a lot, the brush hurts their fingers. Those who embroider and weave. Those who play music. And some even learn how to use weapons!”

She laughed at the way he pretended to play a string instrument or swing a blade. It seemed her worries were over.

“So you don’t think a callus is ugly.”

“‘Course not. If anything, I was often teased and got called lazy for not having calluses myself!”

He also rose his palms, trying not to dwell on the memories of Guen, Abi or Shuten’s puzzlement after Zeno’s failed sword training. They wouldn’t believe he just couldn’t form them. He was obviously not working out hard enough.

He must have seemed too lost in thought regardless, because Kaya immediately shook her head.

“But Zeno is the most hardworking guy I know!” she said passionately. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll grow your own calluses in no time!”

Zeno let out a bark of a cackle. That would be impossible and he knew it. Kaya’s cheeks puffed a little like a squirrel’s. She probably thought he was laughing at her.

“No, no, you’re right,” he lied. He phrased his next words carefully so they had a tinge of truth in them. “When I grow older, when I become an elderly man with gray hair and beard, I’ll definitely have my hands much bumpier than Kaya’s.”

Not like the gods would allow that to happen, but if he ever was lifted of this eternal youth he would be able to get plenty of those. Right?

Kaya reached with her own palms stretched until she touched his, fingertips touching, like a mirror’s reflection, like a prayer. Her hands were smaller and yet sturdier. The dirt didn’t seem to matter to her anymore. After an instant, or perhaps an era, she slid her fingers slightly and bended them between his fingers. Zeno immediately did the same and their hands were interlaced in front of them. He felt his upper cheek getting warmer under the soft, loving look in her eyes for him.

Time stopped and only their touch and the sunshine felt real.

“I do love your hands as they are as well,” Kaya finally whispered. “They’re so unbelievable soft and it feels so good to hold them. Your skin is just so smooth and silky.”

“You actually like that? Even if it’s not manly?”

“I like that, yeah.”

Zeno suddenly thought, heart beating fast, that his stupid young skin might not be disgusting after all.

“Well, your calluses make your hands easier to grab. It gives them texture.”

She giggled and wiggled hers around to feel things better.

“Oh, hold on. You do have calluses on your fingers! They’re tiny little bumps, but they’re there!”

“I do? Huh! Must be from when…” When he was young. Before he drank the blood, before he stopped aging. “…From working in the old man’s farm, probably.”

“Probably!”

“Or my epic sword practice with the Dragon Warriors, maybe.” She giggled as if he had told a joke, which it had been even if it was in another sense and she didn’t know. To be fair, his skills back then were also considered a joke.

“Yeah, that would leave those calluses!” She laughed.

“Hey now, that’s how I got so good with the kitchen knife!”

“Figures. Dragon claws are probably good at slicing everything, even pumpkins and watermelons,” she grinned. To be fair, Guen slicing pumpkins would’ve looked hilarious. He distracted the pang in his heart by taking her hands towards his face, unlacing and placing them over his cheeks, the pink blush of his skin now sporting brown stains. She let them stay for a minute before lowering them down.

“I should finish my harvest before it gets dark,” she apologized. “We can be all lovey dovey the rest of the day, okay? And have a good soup tonight!”

“Kaya’s so responsible,” he nodded and cleaned his face while she kept pulling the vegetables’ leaves upwards. She would dust the white root and examine each of them with excitement before dumping them into the basket with little grace, very Kaya-like.

“Sure you don’t need help?”

“It’s fine. I actually really enjoy doing this! It’s fun!”

“Oh, okay. Please have fun. You know,” he added after staring for a while and letting his mind wander about how amazing she was, “this kind of callus isn’t lower than the callus a rich city girl would get from playing a string instrument. If anything, it’s more miraculous. You’re creating life, when you put a seed into the ground. And then it grows! You’re keeping us alive too, with this food. Even the little pests that came to eat the carrots, those are life.” His smile was peaceful. “Your hands bring life, they make things bloom. Why would I not find them beautiful, silly wife?”

She said nothing. Her mouth hanged open while her face turned into a good shade of red. Now that was something he enjoyed doing to her: just leave her speechless or bawling with the best compliments he could come up with. She just looked so cute when she was flustered!

“Z-Zeno…” she finally said.

“What?”

“Please let me work in peace,” she begged while hiding her features behind her sleeves.

“Oh, am I too distracting when I say the truth?” he smirked.

She just nodded, without moving her arms. Heh, he had made her accidentally agree that it was all true by not contradicting it.

“Alriiiiiiiight, geez,” he got up with no annoyance on his voice whatsoever. He removed the dirt from his trousers and tunic shirt. “This silly husband will leave you alone, by popular demand. Just one last thing before I go inside, though. Can I see one of your hands one last time?”

“Mmmkay, but quick.”

She held a shaky hand, not before patting her dirty palm on her kimono a little bit.

Zeno crouched and took it, turned it around, and quickly pecked the back of it with a loud 'mwah’ sound.

From behind her other sleeve, she rose her face enough to stare at him, eyes wide open and shiny.

Zeno then let her go, dramatically turned on his heels, and started to walk back home.

“After the delicious fresh soup, we are holding hands again like you promised,” he proclaimed. “For a long while. Then hugging and cuddling.”

He heard a high-pitched reply coming from behind.

“I-I would like that very much!!”

And leaving that wreck in her mind, he walked forward with a huge grin.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I mentioned in the summary, the idea behind Kaya planting her own vegetables (and some medicinal herbs) comes from the OAD, particularly [this scene](https://i.imgur.com/arHMhrL.png) where you can clearly see some crops.


End file.
